Who Let the Orcs Out? (Ork, Ork, Ork-Ork)

Before we attempt to dress you up like an orc, we must answer one very simple question: What exactly is an orc?

To answer this quite thoroughly, we must travel back to the early 1900’s when a man named John Ronald Reuel Tolkien began his work on what would become TheLord of the Rings trilogy. LOTR, a gold mine of fantasy, features a human-like creature called an “orc.” Orcs are smaller than Men and uglier and filthier (though we admit that some men might give them a run for their money… or their deodorizing spray…). They have fangs, bowed legs, and long arms. Some have dark skin, discolored as if burned. Ominously enough, orcs have a taste for human flesh and are possibly cannibalistic. They’re generally wretched, devious creatures who fight fiercely as long as they’re compelled to by their evil masters like Morgoth or Sauron. Orcs are mainly used as battle fodder for the villains of the series.

Rust Patina:

Orcs have become popular in other fantasy/sci-fi literature and games. In these worlds, they’re often depicted as muscular, greenish-skinned barbarians with prominent tusks, brows, and jaws. Obviously, ideal for the cover of GQ: Fantasy Edition. Orcs are featured in the famous RPG Dungeons and Dragons where they band together as tribes, hunting, raiding, and expanding their territory to survive. They’re also prominent creatures in the immensely popular World of Warcraft where their lore explains that orcs were once a race of warriors and shamans who were tricked into serving a legion of demons as an army of savage slaughterers. That’s a nasty April Fool’s joke if I ever heard of one!

Orcs also appear in other video and tabletop RPGs, such as Warhammer, Earthdawn, Shadowrun, Elder Scrolls, and Fate, as well as various fantasy novels and comic books. These creatures are different in appearance and temperament in each world, though they’re most often barbaric warriors and part of an enemy army.